HOMETOWN HERO?

Please take your Bibles and turn to . Today we return to our study of the first Gospel. Since it has been a while (about nine months to be exact) since we took a break from our study of this book I thought it might be helpful to review some of the things we have learned so far.

Matthew, the author of this Gospel account, was one of the twelve apostles. He was formerly a despised tax collector, but when Jesus called and instructed him to Follow Christ, he turned his back on his old life and followed without reservation. The fact that Jesus chose to have a tax collector among His close associates demonstrated that He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience, and he seems to have a two-fold purpose. First, he seems to be laying out the case that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. He, and only He, was the rightful heir to the throne of David. We see this in the detailed genealogy in the opening chapter, as well as in the frequent use of what has come to be called “the fulfillment formula.” Frequently in the Gospel account we read the phrase “this was done to fulfill what was written...” This gives strong evidence to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

The second purpose for his writing of this Gospel account seems to be as an exhortation to Jewish followers of Jesus to take the Gospel to all nations, and not just to keep it among the Jews. We see this in the prominence of various Gentiles as they are mentioned in the text, beginning with prominent Gentile women who were mentioned in the genealogical record. And this come to a conclusion in the Great Commission passage which closes this account. As a matter of fact most commentators mention the fact that the whole account is in fact heading to that statement.

The second purpose for his writing of this Gospel account seems to be as an exhortation to Jewish followers of Jesus to take the Gospel to all nations, and not just to keep it among the Jews.

Matthew 28:18–20 NASB95PARA

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This Gospel account has a unique form, which we have been following throughout our study. After the prologue section, which includes , the rest of the book alternates between narrative sections, and discourse sections. Thus far we have looked at the first three groupings of narrative and discourse passages. And when we have taken a break from our exposition of this text it has been at the conclusion of one of these sections.

The first narrative section was an introduction to John and the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Up to around the age of thirty Jesus had lived in relative obscurity in the obscure village of Nazareth, in the region of Galilee. After the arrest of John the Baptist Jesus began His public ministry in Galilee. The first discourse is often referred to as THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. In this amazing passage Jesus established Himself as the authoritative teacher and interpreter of God’s Holy Word.

After this sermon, in chapters 8-9 — which is the second narrative section, Matthew records for us a series of miraculous works, which establish Jesus as Divine Son who has authority over disease, space, the elements of nature, sin, and the spiritual forces of wickedness. The second discourse is found in chapter 10 where Jesus appoints the twelve apostles and gives them instruction for ministry.

The third narrative section is found in chapters 11-12. In this section we see what I previously referred to as the rising tide of tension regarding Jesus and His ministry. The so-called spiritual leaders in the region of Galilee were offended that Jesus would perform acts of compassion on the Sabbath, and so they began to charge Him with being empowered by Satan rather than by God. They either committed or where dangerously close to committing what Jesus referred to as blasphemy of the Spirit, which is often called the unpardonable sin. Many see this as being a definitive turning point in this Gospel account. And it sets the stage for the third discourse, which is the kingdom parables found in chapter 13. Jesus taught in parables so that only those to whom He chose to explain the parables would be able to understand what was being taught. Summing up His reasoning for speaking in parables He told the twelve:

Matthew 13:13 NASB95PARA

Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

This brings us to our text for today which begins with the textual indicator that Matthew always employed to mark the end of a discourse — “When Jesus had finished these parables...”

One commentator has compared this next narrative section of Matthew’s Gospel account to the first of the kingdom parables — The Parable of the Sower and the Soil. If you will recall from our study of that parable the seed that was sown fell among five different types of soil. Four of those places did not produce any fruit, but the seed the fell on fertile soil produced an abundant amount of fruit. In the same way, this narrative section seems to display more folks who rejected Christ and His message than those who received and embraced the message.

Our passage today, the first part of the fourth narrative, begins with Jesus leaving Capernaum, which had been His center of ministry for over a year, and traveling back to His hometown of Nazareth. One would think that Nazareth would have welcomed Jesus back as some sort of hometown hero. But that was not the case. As we briefly meditate on this passage for remainder of this morning’s message we will look at the scandal, and the lack of spiritual discernment, and unbelief as it relates to the people of Nazareth.

But first let’s read this short paragraph together.

THE SCANDAL

The Apostle John wrote:

John 1:11 NASB95PARA

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

That can be seen as somewhat of a Divine summary of our passage in Matthew 13.

The first thing that I want you to note is found in verse 57 — And they took offense at Him. That term translated offense is the Greek term skandalizō, from which we get the English term “scandal.”

People love a good scandal. I’m not really sure why that is, but I can say that it is definitely part of our fallen nature to relish in a scandalous story. Half of the news that we see in print or in broadcast is centered around some sort of scandal. And that is because a good scandal draws people to the news media. Sometimes I think that the media seeks to create scandals that are not there in order to get people to buy or listen to their interpretation of current events.

Notice the setting for all of this which is found in verse 54: He came to His began teaching them in their synagogue. The synagogue in ancient Israel was the rough equivalent of a local church. For the nation of Israel the only place in which they were to offer their sacrifices as an act of worship was at the Temple in Jerusalem, or the Tabernacle that proceeded the Temple. During the time of the Babylonian captivity the dispersed Jewish people began meeting in localized places since they could no longer journey to Jerusalem as their Law required. This is how the synagogue began. It was the place there the rabbis would teach the people from the Word of God. Hence it was also the place of erroneous interpretations regarding God and His Word.

Our text tells us that the people who heard Jesus teaching in the synagogue of Nazareth were astonished by His teaching. We don’t know what He taught them on this occasion. It could be that He delivered to them some of the same parables that He had taught in Capernaum. There is no way of knowing. But we do know the people’s reaction to His teaching. They were astonished. This should not be seen in a positive light for the context paints it as a negative reaction. They were somehow astounded by the fact that Jesus was teaching them in an authoritative way. In a sense we could say that they were blinded to who Jesus was for a couple of different reasons. The first reason was that the Nazarenes were

BLINDED BY PREJUDICE

Their sense of astonishment is most certainly based on a perceived prejudice they had regarding this man who had grown up in their midst.Hence their question: Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?

In our country we tend to think of prejudice as being exclusively a racial issue. While it may include that it is not exclusively so. The prejudice in this instance is probably more an issue of familiarity than anything else. When we are familiar with people in a certain light it is sometimes difficult for us to see them in a different light.

Many years ago when I was a music teacher in northern Maine, though I never learned how to dance, for my younger students I would do goofy dances with them just to keep the attentive and to get them to move a bit. One summer day I was taking a walk and a mother and her daughter who had just passed from kindergarten drove by. The mother asked her daughter if she recognized me. She said “no.” The mom then told her that it was Mr. D, her music teacher. The little girl, i think her name was Samantha, said: “Mommy that can’t be Mr. D because he is NOT dancing!” In other words she could not see me in any other context than being a music teacher.

Verse 55 helps us understand the context in which they knew Jesus: Is not this the carpenter’s son? Since Joseph is not mentioned at all in the contexts of the public ministry of Jesus it is most likely that he had already passed on to his heavenly reward. If that be the case, then Jesus probably took over running the carpentry business in Joseph’s absence. The term carpenter could refer to one who works with either wood or stone. Hence builder may be a better term since most of the homes at this time in ancient Galilee were made with stone. The presence of the definite article “the” before the word carpenter leads some to speculate that Joseph was the main, if not the only carpenter, in the village. In other words Jesus would have been well known as being a carpenter.

Notice that in verses 55-56 there is a mention of Jesus’ earthly family. His mother Mary is mentioned, as well a His brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. It is interesting to note that three of His half-brothers had counterparts among the apostles (but they are distinctly different people). Though His sisters are not mentioned by name, they are mentioned. This passage should be enough to do away with that errant doctrine regarding Mary’s perpetual virginity that the Catholic Church teaches. But somehow or another they find a way to twist the Scriptures in an effort to support their poor doctrine, teaching that these were His cousins and not His siblings!

The people of the synagogue were astonished to think that a mere carpenter would pretend to have any sort of authority to teach them about God and His ways. They were blinded by prejudice. Another possible reason for blindness in regards to Jesus was that they may have been

BLINDED BY ACCUSATIONS

Today if you were to travel from the village of Nazareth to Capernaum it would be about a 40 mile journey. Even back then 40 miles is not so far that the residents of Nazareth would have been unacquainted with what was happening in Capernaum regarding Jesus. They would have heard the speculation of the religious leaders that Jesus derived the power to perform miraculous signs from Satan rather than from God. Their question about where Jesus got the wisdom and the miraculous powers may have been in reference to that.

Regardless of the temporal reason for the Nazarenes rejection of Jesus, on the spiritual plane we know that they were blinded because of

A LACK OF SPIRITUAL DISCERNEMNT

What I mean by this is that people can only discern the things of God if the Holy Spirit has enabled them to do so. Paul wrote:

1 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV

But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

For some reason God chose not to reveal the true identity of Jesus to the people from His hometown. The words of Isaiah ring so true in this respect:

Isaiah 53:1–3 NASB95PARA

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

We who are true believers in Jesus Christ are so blessed because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Though the natural man cannot discern the things of God, we who have the Holy Spirit can discern those things which God has chosen to reveal to us through His Holy Word. We can do so because we have the mind of Christ.

As we bring things to a close this morning let’s consider for a moment

THE TRAGEDY OF UNBELIEF

Notice verse 58 for a moment: And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. We need to clarify that Jesus’ ability to perform signs and wonders was not contingent on the faith of the recipient. We have already seen many instances in the Gospel where Jesus healed in the absence of faith. But in this instance for reasons of His own, He chose not to heal many folks from the weight of their infirmities. As a matter of fact, I have observed as I read through this narrative section that there are not as many specific miracles that are detailed as in some of the previous narrative sections of Matthew. To be certain that are some wonderful signs such as the feeding of the 5,000, walking on water, the feeding of the four thousand, etc. But the specifics of dealing with individual cases of healing are limited. This may very well be the ramification of the new phase of ministry which occurred after the confrontation over the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Or it may simply be that such detailed accounts did not fit into Matthew’s purpose in writing.

All that being said, Matthew specifically mentions the tragedy of unbelief in this particular instance.

Of course the greatest tragedy of unbelief is that it brings with it eternal damnation from God. For those who place their faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the words of Isaiah once again ring true.

Isaiah 53:5 NKJV

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Have you placed your faith in the message of the gospel? Have you acknowledged that there is a God to whom you are accountable? Have you recognized that you are a sinner who has offended this holy God? Have you embraced Jesus Christ as the only way to be reconciled to God?

Believer, are you publishing the report of who Jesus is and what He has done in your life?

Let’s pray.

Closing Song — No. 303 — Worthy is the Lamb